Paris is planning to sue Fox News after the "image" of the city was "insulted" and "prejudiced," Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced Tuesday during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. “When we’re insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed," Hidalgo said. "The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced. And I think in the great discussion of truth everyone is to play its role. And we’re going to have to be realistic and put things as they are.” When asked by Amanpour to clarify which network she plans to take to court and sue, Hidalgo responded, “Fox News, that’s the name.” Though the exact details of the lawsuit are unclear, over the weekend Fox News apologized to "the people of France and England" for erroneously suggesting that certain European cities have "no-go zones" where non-Muslims are not welcome. Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post. Jackson Connor
"Place to Avoid" - French Blogger Fined $2,000 for Writing Bad Restaurant Review Want to review a French restaurant? Only good reviews are allowed in France. Caroline Doudet a blogger who runs the site “Cultur'elle,” found that out when she wrote a restaurant review that the French court said "ranked too high in a Google search" (as if any writer can know in advance how many times a blog will be read, or what its ranking will be). Link to Cached Review of "Place to Avoid" Doudet was ordered to change the title of her blog and pay a fine. Instead she took it down. However, a cached version is still available, and I bet it gets even more hits now that the courts have piqued everyone's interest. Cached English translation: The place to avoid the Cap-Ferret: Il Giardino. Neither the headline nor the article appears unreasonably inflammatory. Doudet's main charge is exceptionally poor service. It took numerous complaints to three sets of servers for Doudet to get drinks and an appetizer before her main course arrived. $2,000 Fine For her writeup, French Blogger Fined $2,000 for Restaurant Review, Too Prominent on Google. A blogger eats in an Italian restaurant in southwestern France. She thinks the food is bad, the service even worse, and she writes up a review that is not glowing, to put it mildly. It’s a scenario that plays out daily in the cyberworld. Hair in a dish of pasta? Many would snap a photo and share it on Twitter or Facebook. An insufferable waiter? Blog it out. But this blogger, a French woman named Caroline Doudet who runs “Cultur'elle,” got sued for it by the restaurant Il Giardino. And a judge has ruled that she must amend the title of her piece – because with it the post appears too prominently in Google search results – and that she owes $2,000 in damages. The judge, according to court documents reported by the BBC, said that her blog, with over 3,000 followers, came up as the fourth result any time someone searched for the restaurant in Google. Therefore, she [the judge] reasoned, the title should be changed so “place to avoid” was less prominent. Doudet made very good point to the local newspaper Sud Ouest that if bloggers don’t have the liberty to write bad reviews, good reviews become essentially meaningless. Il Giardino a "Place to Avoid" If for some unexplained reason you find yourself in France, you may wish to mark Il Giardino as a place to avoid. Any restaurant that would file charges against a blogger instead of apologizing for alleged piss poor service, is not a place I would want to visit. For its stupid lawsuit, it's highly likely Il Giardino suffers more than it would have otherwise. Lawyer Advises Mish "Don't Go to France" Here's the real place to avoid: France. I have my own experience, as many of you know. For details, please see Lawyer Advises Me "Don't Go to France"; French Pub Fined €9,000 for Using "Undeclared Labor" after Customers Returned Empties to Bar Doudet may be out $2,000 but hopefully she makes it up with publicity. I am willing to help. Please check out her site: Cultur'elle. Here's an English Translation of Cultur'elle. As for me, France is not going to collect a cent. Outside of purposeful slander, yelling "fire" in a movie, etc., I can say what I want. France should try that reasonable approach. Instead, France (like Spain) marches at a fast pace down the road to complete internet big brother supervision. For a synopsis of Spain and Europe in general, please see Internet Free Speech Vanishes in Spain; Most Infamous Law in Internet History; Brussels and Spain Target Google Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mish Fined 8,000 Euros for Quoting French Blog A few days ago I learned, via a French blog, that I was fined 8,000 euros for quoting a French blogger. I would have known earlier, but the letter notifying me of the fine was sent in French. In an earlier express letter packet, I could make out a few of the words, in particular noting a summons to appear before a tribunal in France. Needless to say, I did not go. Let's backtrack to my blog post that started it all. On August 15, 2011, I posted BNP Paribas leveraged 27:1; Société Générale Leveraged 50:1; Sorry State of Affairs of U.S. Banks; Global Financial System is Bankrupt In that post I quoted Jean-Pierre Chevallier on his Business économiste monétariste béhavioriste blog, that BNP Paribas leveraged: 27! I also cited Chevallier's Société Générale leveraged: 50! Société Générale took exception to the numbers and came up with its own set of numbers. According to SG, its leverage was 9.3%. A day or so later, Chevallier redid his calculations and I added this addendum. Addendum: Société Générale disputes the numbers and new calculations using the banks' numbers are 28:1 or perhaps 23:1 not 50:1 as noted on Forex Crunch. My position has not changed much. Something is seriously wrong at Société Générale. Banks do not plunge out of the blue on rumors. I do not know the precise leverage, but shares are acting as if Société Générale has severe capital constraints (which of course they will deny) and/or other major problems. Société Générale was not happy to say the least. They wrote the SEC (in English) complaining about my blog. The lengthy complaint went along the lines "I should accept as fact any numbers given to me by Société Générale". French Banking Primer On September 2, 2011, the Wall Street Journal chimed in with A French Banking Primer The effects of a system that 'encourages excessive financial leverage'. By its own account, Credit Agricole's tangible common equity is just 2.1% of its assets—which means its €1.6 trillion balance sheet is leveraged nearly 49-to-1. Credit Agricole argues that €500 billion of that should be netted out because of its hybrid banking/insurance business model, which still leaves it leveraged 33 times. BNP Paribas and Societe Generale are somewhat less leveraged, at 24 and 23 times their tangible equity, respectively. As a group, these three banks have some €4 trillion in assets on their balance sheets, supported by €129.3 billion of tangible common equity. By contrast, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America have nearly $4.4 trillion in assets between them, supported by $253 billion in tangible common equity. That's a leverage ratio of 17 for the U.S. banks versus nearly 27, on average, for the French big three. An IMF report in July offered one explanation for why French banks remain so heavily leveraged compared to their U.S. counterparts. The authors note "the bias of the present system" in France, "which encourages excessive financial leverage, and contributes to a dearth of equity financing for innovative projects and an inefficient allocation of resources." Among France's peculiarities, the IMF cites France's high financial-sector corporate tax rates and generous credits and subsidies to debt-financed investments, which effectively reward borrowing over equity financing or retained earnings. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the French banking system's total exposure to the riskiest euro-zone countries is $671.7 billion (€489.9 billion) as of March. That figure is equal to nearly 7% of all banking assets in France, more than a quarter of France's 2010 GDP and more than three times the combined equity of France's three biggest banks, which together account for 65% of the country's total banking assets. Those facts did not stop Societe Generale from whining to the SEC. My SEC contact said that he was obligated by agreement to pass on the complaint, adding something along the lines of "French banks were notorious about filing frivolous complaints". Summoned to French Witch Hunt I received one more express letter from France, in English, telling me subsequent letters would be in French and that I had to respond to the complaint in French. I received a few more correspondences, totally in French, but did not scan them or translate them, although I could make out a few words in one of them, specifically noting that I was personally summoned to a witch hunt. 8,000 Euro Fine The tribunal ruled "Mish is a Witch". A few days ago I received an email about my fine, and an offer of support from the French blog Les-Crises. Here is the email. Hi Mish, I'm Actuary, and I've created the blog Les-Crises. My post of the day is to criticize our AMF, explaining why they are wrong: [GROS DÉLIRE] Quand l’AMF sanctionne les blogueurs plutôt que les financiers! The decision if really incredible. I'd like to help you. Regards Olivier Berruyer Paris, France The title translates roughly to "Gross Delirium: The AMF sanctions bloggers rather than financial corporations!" I asked my friend Pater Tenebrarum at Acting Man for a synopsis. With thanks to Pater: The French authorities accuse Chevalier of 'knowingly disseminating false information' about SocGen and you to have disseminated it further on 'Chevalier's urging', although you should have known better and it was your duty to check if his numbers were right (that is the basis for fining him 10,000 and you 8,000 euros). Les-Crises shows that Chevalier wasn't 'falsifying' anything. He merely did not use the so-called 'risk weighting' of assets in his calculations (whereby e.g. Greek sovereign debt has 'no risk') . What he did was calculate a kind of leverage ratio, apparently following a standard for calculation very similar to one laid down by Alan Greenspan some time ago. Les-Crises points out that Chevalier did not 'invent' any numbers - he used only data published by SocGen. Chevalier never asserted that his calculations represented a 'tier 1' ratio according to the Basel rules with their risk-weighting - it always was a 'Chevalier leverage ratio' so to speak, calculated using SocGen's publicly available balance sheet data. Banksters Strike Back Today a second article came out regarding the witch hunt, this time in English: France: Banksters Strike Back Against Bloggers Societe Generale was not happy with Jean Pierre Chevallier's blog and lodged a complaint aith the the French financial market supervisory authority, Autorité des marchés financiers (AFM), and the AMF has now astonished Mr Chevallier and a lot of others, including this blogger, by upholding the complaint and fining Jean-Pierre Chevallier €10,000 for publishing "inexact" information which might influence the share price. Mr Chevalier intends to appeal against the AFM verdict and says he is also planning to sue the AFP for making false and defamatory accusations against him. The AMF has also fined Mike Shedlock €8,000, of Mish's Global Trend Analysis, published in the USA, for the same offence against Societe General. Shedlock reported the Chevallier analysis. No Jurisdiction The Witch hunt is now over and I was fined nearly as much as Chevallier. It's absurd enough to fine someone for a quote, and even more so when the facts are accurate. The AFM has no jurisdiction over me, so they won't collect. As a US citizen living in the US, I am not subject to the absurdities of French laws, or French witch hunts. All they get from me is a vow to never go to France. Best wishes to Chevallier in his fight against absurd fines and bureaucratic madness gone wild. Hopefully he can use the article from the WSJ in his defense. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
The French are unable to win the battle against Muslim terrorists who are overwhelming their country and instead decide to pick a battle with Fox News - Failing to recognize they will in time also surrender to Fox.
Not sure about outrage, but they can't be happy Jindal's nonsense just got slapped down by the Brits.
Mish better be careful - while the French are totally incapable of tacking the Islamic terrorist issue which is destroying their country, the French are more than happy to sue anyone who expresses an opinion they do not like. Sadly if Mish does not pay the fine then the French government will enter an international arrest warrant in INTERPOL and the next time Mish travels internationally the designation country will arrest him at customs and extradite him to France to serve a prison term for not paying the fine. He needs to hire a French legal firm to fight this.
I doubt very highly Mish will be extradited for an unpaid fine, or that he is the only one to ignore a French fine.